Jeremy Jennings works on the history of political thought, largely with reference to France . He has published on issues relating to political thought and ideologies from the seventeenth century to the present day. In addition, he has published two edited collections of essays devoted to the examination of the role of intellectuals in politics and, more recently, an edited collection of essays exploring themes associated with republicanism in theory and practice. In 2004 he published a four-volume edited collection of essays on socialism. His work is presently focused upon two projects: a study of political thought in France from the eighteenth century to the present day (for Oxford University Press) and a recently completed edition of the writings of the French liberal Alexis de Tocqueville on America (for Cambridge University Press). He has published extensively in a wide range of journals, including American Political Science Review , Review of Politics and The Journal of the History of Ideas. The latter explore subjects relating to political thought in eighteenth and nineteenth-century France : the debate about luxury, the significance of the American experience, democracy and representation, and French visions of England . Prof Jennings is one of the founding editors of the European Journal of Political Theory . He is also the Director of the newly-established Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary. This is a cross-departmental institute located within the Graduate School bringing together scholars from different disciplines with a research interest in the history of political thought.

Caroline Williams is currently working on the political philosophy of Baruch de Spinoza: Spinoza and Political Critique: Thinking the Political in the Wake of Althusser . This research places Spinoza in his own time and situates his philosophy and political thought within the history of ideas (particularly the thought of Hobbes and Rousseau). It also develops a novel reading of his philosophy, and argues that many of Spinoza's ideas find radical expression in Althusserian and post-Althusserian political philosophy. She has also recently published ‘Reading Spinoza Today' in Contemporary Political Theory (2002), ‘Spinoza: Politics, Power and the Multitude', in Terrell Carver and James Martin (eds), Palgrave Advances in Continental Political Thought (Palgrave, 2004), and ‘Thinking the Political in the Wake of Spinoza: Power, Affect and Imagination in the Ethics' in Contemporary Political Theory (2007) .

Madeleine Davis' main interest is in the history of political ideas, with particular reference to the assimilation of Marxist ideas in Britain in the post-war period, and the relationship between theory and practice on the political left. She is currently writing a book on The British New Left and its Legacy (for Pluto Press). This examines the New Left as a diffuse but coherent intellectual tradition, exploring its nature as a political and intellectual intervention, its reworking of Marxism, and its theoretical and political legacy. She has also recently contributed a chapter on ‘Labourism and the New Left' to Steve Fielding, Steve Ludlam and John Callaghan (eds), Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour Politics and History (Manchester University Press, 2003), which examines the critiques of ‘labourism' offered by New Left thinkers including Ralph Miliband, John Saville and Tom Nairn; and she has recently published ‘The Marxism of the British New Left' in the Journal of Political Ideologies (2006).